Notre Dame Football: 6 Lessons Learned from the Stanford Cardinal

There is a lot to be learned from a game against an institution that requires a 31 ACT score to get in led by a college quarterback that was the valedictorian of his high school with a 3.5 grade point average in architectural engineering.

One is that after looking at the field conditions on a beautiful southern California night playing against a team with a tree for a mascot, the entire Stanford Horticultural Department should be bagged.

A California college that can’t grow grass? What is this country coming to?

Without tapping into the Cardinal brain trust, it’s also very clear that a vicious pass rush can do wonders for a poor secondary. Also, if your offensive line can push their defensive line, so can your running backs.

I don’t think I’m revealing any government secrets when I say that given time in the pocket, a Heisman-contending quarterback can honestly pick which tight end he wants to do post-game interviews.

No one needs a Ph.D. in Exercise Science to see what Stanford football is all about these days.

It might take an international research team cloned from Einstein’s brain stem to figure what we have at Notre Dame.

What the hell, we passed Geometry once, so let’s give it a shot.

Andrew Hendrix Can Play

When you watch Andrew Luck, you start to understand what happens when you have a real quarterback with real arms and real legs. Add his brains and experience, and it isn’t hard to see why the NFL is considering offering him way more than fifty bucks and a 2009 Ford Focus to play quarterback at the highest level.

When you watch Andrew Hendrix, you also start to understand what happens what happens when you have a real quarterback with real arms and real legs. Add his brains and inexperience, and it isn’t hard to see that Hendrix brings an as-yet unrefined skillset that makes Kelly’s offense dangerous even in the face of a high-pressure defense.

In his first extended play in two years of college football (thank you, Brian Kelly) Hendrix threw bullets, gained significant yards with his legs, and extended the play often even in the face of a brutal beating from the Cardinal defensive front that made Kelly’s previous most favored child look like he had never played varsity football.

While by no means a finished product, Hendrix at least gave us a glimpse of what a mobile quarterback with a big arm can do in this offense.

Andrew Hendrix and Everett Golson shall be watched closely this spring.

Tommy Rees Cannot Play Against Pressure

Tommy Rees has 15 starts now, more than a full season, and he has yet to perform well against a pressure defense. Please spare me his career stats. In Kelly’s offense my Aunt Martha can make all the throws Rees makes, and she steadfastedly refuses to put down her handbag or lay off her gin fizzes during the play.

As will happen every time a team with a good defensive line sees Tommy Rees at quarterback, Stanford brought the house, and sometimes the vacation condo with it. The result was a not unexpected stat line for Tommy Rees of 6-of-13 for 60 yards and a terrible pick slapped around two near picks in one half of play.

Just as expected, Rees completed one pass of more than nine yards and threw behind his receivers consistently to miss quick reads.

As usual, he had his obligatory fumble on a non-blindside sack and convincingly demonstrated that there is no defensive end in the country that can’t make up a six yard lead from the twelve and tackle him at the two.

My 90-year-old mom would have made the pylon on that one and that includes the stutter step while she finished off her last shot of Jack Daniels.

At half time, Brian Kelly contacted Stanford athletic director Bob Bowlsby (real name, I kid you not) and complained that the Cardinal should put in a defense from any of the military academies to restore Tommy’s confidence.

Needless to say, Bowlsby was entirely unreasonable and Kelly had to pull Rees in the face of a Cardinal defense that can cave the pocket like Snooki sitting on a styrofoam cup.

No one is saying that Rees wasn’t pressured. In fact, several replays brought to mind National Geographic specials where the poor wildebeast calf was quickly cornered and subsequently mauled by the pack of rabid hyenas - and at one point ABC did show some tape where a Stanford DE was gnawing on Rees ankle.

Still, I think now even Kelly won’t dispute that when Tommy is pressured he cannot compete. When rushed, Rees consistently whipped it at the defense and/or went fetal (see also Michigan, Pitt, and USC).

This is problematic since last week against Boston College, we found out he doesn’t fare so well with a two-man rush either.

For the “Tommy is 12-2” fan club, he is now “12-3”, and is consistently showing why he cannot compete at the FBS level trying to throw five-yard outs and bubble screens all day against any defense with teeth.

Notre Dame’s Offense is OK

14 points and 309 yards against anybody isn’t anything that will get you an ESPY, but all things considered, after Rees’ 60 yard first half passing and the relentless Stanford rush, Hendrix and the Notre Dame offense made a decent showing for a quarterback getting his first extended time against a punishing defense.

It’s hard to say how Notre Dame would have fared if Hendrix had more experience in this offense than just the handful of plays Kelly has given him all year while playing Rees almost every down.

Hendrix threw some good balls, plus he rushed and scrambled well despite the fact Stanford’s defensive line and linebacking corp had its ears pinned back the entire second half.

Notre Dame truly missed Jonas Gray and his power running as Theo Riddick’s and Cierre Wood’s speed and cutting ability was more or less mooted by a loose-rug covered field that was easily Stanford’s leading tackler for the day.

The offensive line was overpowered and outnumbered at times. Longo and Kelly will definitely need to keep them improving in the off-season if they expect to handle next year’s schedule that includes everyone but the 1985 Bears.

Stanford has an average secondary and a solid front, and despite some blown assignments Notre Dame moved the ball most of the second half which bodes well for the future of this offense.

Notre Dame’s Defense is OK

No, Notre Dame's defense is not being compared to LSU any time soon, nor is anyone mistaking it for the 2011 Ravens. At times, it has been mistaken for an angry group of women told the Black Friday sales at Kohl’s was prematurely shut down, which is no small compliment if you’ve ever been involved in that chaos.

While giving up 196 yards on the ground and 429 total during a relatively conservatively called game might seem to be a poor outing, giving up only 28 points to Andrew Luck & Co. is no small feat.

A lot of good defenses this year have done a lot worse and with my mom sidelined with another untimely bout with arthritis the starting defensive line had to pretty much go the whole way without her dizzying array of spin moves and bull rushes.

Notre Dame played lots of freshmen in their defensive line against a stout offensive front, and still had reasonable pressure and decent containment against the run. Another year of Paul Longo plate lifting videos and a stern lecture or three from Diaco and Notre Dame’s defensive front should make a more than solid unit next year.

Notre Dame linebackers were consistently picked on (as always). This group has had trouble covering the Elks Lodge Thursday Bingo group all year, and yesterday was no different. However, they mostly kept the ball in front of them and tackled well enough, and even had a pick.

Zeke Motta has shown for the second game in a row why he has no business being on the field when the phrase “man coverage” is used, and the secondary was burned consistently in the first half. Still, Andrew Luck has torched everybody for three years straight, so we can’t complain too much when he only burns Notre Dame for 233 yards.

To no one’s surprise, it is clear that an efficient short passing offense is still a problem for Diaco’s defense and his secondary does not exhibit the speed or man-to-man skills to press coverage in key situations.

The bowl and spring practices need to focus on getting better production out of next year’s secondary and outside linebackers, and we should all hope that Tee Shepherd and Ronald Darby are pretty close to plug and play defensive backs or next year will be uglier than the new Snooki Gone Wild video.

Brian Kelly Has Some Decisions to Make

Anyone that saw Tommy Rees floundering helplessly in the face of the Stanford rush knows that Kelly is now facing a crossroads with his hand-picked quarterback. The season-long tutoring of Tommy Rees has not resulted in a decrease in bad turnovers or an increased ability to make quick reads in the face of a hard rush.

More, Hendrix’ brief time on the field has made it abundantly clear what a quarterback that can stretch the field with his arm and legs can do to help this offense.

Kelly knows Tommy will thrive against average and poor defenses, but that he will have to game plan around Tommy when the big boys bring their track team full of intemperate gorillas to town. As Stanford and USC have shown, Kelly doesn’t have a big enough bag of tricks to pull that off, and Tommy doesn’t have the tools to help him work around it.

After Stanford took Rees out behind the woodshed, there is no doubt that Kelly is now mulling over his season-long infatuation with developing Tommy Turnover against all other options. It's better than even money Hendrix may start in the upcoming Less Than Relevant Bowl.

As a personal opinion, I also think Kelly and Diaco are going to have to rethink how and if they can run a 3-4 effectively.

The pressure the myriad blitzing schemes the 3-4 promotes has not been there with any consistency. The linebackers still look lost after two years of running this defense. The secondary’s success game in and game out depends more on a bad opposing QB than good coverage.

Even when they have pressure, Diaco’s D seems extremely vulnerable to the short passing game, and his secondary has been exposed time and again all year to both intermediate and long balls by anyone that can chuck it further than Tommy.

Whether it’s scheme, personnel, technique, or play calling, Notre Dame's defense is going to need some tweeking if it expects to stop somebody that can run more than a wide receiver post with the tight end dragging across the middle.

Summary

Stanford Cardinal football is good, and there is no shame in a 28-14 beatdown on the road by a good defensive front and a quarterback that is every bit as good as John Elway and twenty times the quarterback Tim Tebow ever will be.

In reality, Stanford’s secondary is as pedestrian as they come, but there was little time to test them deep. Offensively, without Andrew Luck, Stanford’s offense is not much better than Michigan State, with fewer quality backs and much worse wideouts. With Andrew Luck, it does exactly what Luck wants it to do.

They are a top-5 team right now, and they’ll come down to earth next year.

As for Notre Dame, Stanford pointed out a lot of faults in our coverage, in our offensive line and quarterback --- faults that will have to be fixed for this program to be successful next year and beyond.

We should learn from this experience.

It is up to Kelly and Diaco to make sure we don’t have to go through this again any time soon.